Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Dialectical Advance of China in International Relations: An Overview

  24 April 2010, by Arshi Khan

  The trend and pattern of international relations, which is in transition, seems to be following a kind of ‘dialectical advance’ in the direction of unfolding itself due to inherent conflicts and oppositions. This dialectical process as a natural course of shifts, curves, breakdown and resetting also seems to continue due to the deficiencies and imperfections existing therein. This hypothetical reading of international relations is closer to the ‘Hegelian theory of Reason and Absolute Idea’ (…)

• Muslims and the Half-won Battle for Social Justice

  24 April 2010, by Harish S. Wankhede

  The recent Supreme Court judgment, which permitted the Andhra Pradesh Government to provide four per cent reservation quota for socially and economically backward groups among the Muslims in jobs and educational institutions, is a commendable development in the battle for social justice. The earlier interim order passed by a seven-judge Bench of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had struck down the same law for providing quota for the Muslims with a remark that “it violated the constitutional (…)

• South Block’s Predicament: Stranded in Afghanistan and Marginalised in the Region

  24 April 2010, by Mansoor Ali

  National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon went to Kabul a week after the terror attack on a small hotel housing mainly Indians, ostensibly to beef up security arrangements in the Afghan capital. While this was clearly one of the main tasks of his visit, a prime objective of the trip was to regain India’s faltering grip in Kabul. More so after its diplomacy received a severe setback at the London Conference on Afghanistan where New Delhi was unable to garner support for its positions in (…)

• Eyeless in New Delhi

  19 April 2010, by SC

  Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit offered him an opportunity during his meeting with the US head of state to raise India’s concerns in the wake of the latest Afpak policy framed by President Barack Obama. It must be pointed out that he did so quite effectively, and told Obama in clear terms that New Delhi could never forego its strategic and security interests at the altar of US expediency in that region, particularly when both sides (…)

• Rethink Counter-Maoist Strategy

  19 April 2010, by Digvijay Singh

  The recent incident in Dantewada wherein the Maoists killed 76 CRPF jawans has triggered a heated debate about the establishment on one side and the Naxalites on the other. One section calls for strong action against the Naxalites, even calling them terrorists and urging the use of armed forces against them, while others defend the action of the Naxalites to the extent of justifying it.
  Hours and hours have been spent on the debate by many people, be it senior politicians, (…)

• Judiciary at the Crossroad—Some Posers

  19 April 2010, by Rajindar Sachar

  The judiciary, though one of the three wings of the sovereignty, is considered to be the weakest by the public even if in the constitutional scheme it should be the strongest. But this downgrading unfortunately is brought about by self-inflicted wounds. The judiciary owes to itself to do a little more serious introspection if for nothing else but to just maintain its esteem amongst the public at large.
  A serious charge against the judiciary is the pendency of about 2.7 crore cases in (…)

• Untouchable Ambedkar—the Saga of his Discrimination in America

  19 April 2010, by A K Biswas

  The 119th birth anniversary of Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar has been observed on April 14 this year. On this occasion we offer our sincere homage to that towering personality by publishing the following article and a piece that N.C. wrote on him in 1990 when the Bharat Ratna was posthumously conferred on Dr Ambedkar.
  Paradoxically the curse of untouchability continues to chase Dr Babasaheb Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar even half-a-century after his death and the bane is not history yet. (…)

• Honouring Ambedkar

  19 April 2010, by Nikhil Chakravartty

  The award of the Bharat Ratna posthumously on B.R. Ambedkar raises mixed feelings. No doubt Ambedkar was one of the stalwarts of modern India; the high-water mark of his career was that he contributed most to the drafting of the Indian Constitution and piloting it through the Constituent Assembly. There is, therefore, a touch of irony in Ambedkar being awarded the Bharat Ratna 30 years after he eminently deserved it when the Constitution came into force in 1950.
  Not only that. All (…)

• Suppression Won’t Work, Caring May

  19 April 2010, by T J S George

  Let us say P. Chidambaram has his way. Crack Army battalions are ordered into the forests of the Naxal-tribal belt. A formidable arsenal of weapons short of the nuclear are pressed into service. The Air Force, despite its better judgment, is ordered to reduce suspected hideouts into ash heaps. In no time Chidambaram will be able to proclaim triumphantly that the Maoists have been wiped out.
  But that’s what Chief Minister Siddharth Shankar Ray did in West Bengal in the 1970s. By then (…)

• Fighting Naxalism the Democratic Way

  19 April 2010, by Mahi Pal Singh

  Since the biggest incident of massacre of 76 CRPF personnel by the Maoists at Dantewada, Chhattisgarh on April 6, 2010 heated debates have been taking place in the media about how to tackle the menace of Naxalite/Maoist violence in the country. In these debates, which take place on almost all channels of the electronic media, spokespersons of the major political parties, retired military and police officers appearing on these channels as defence experts and TV anchors always end up holding (…)